Liora Mondlak remembers accompanying her mother to the market in Mexico City, where she grew up. She remembers the chickens hanging by their feet, and the sawdust around her saddle shoes. Years later, she would return to the market to buy ground chameleon, a well-known love potion, which she uses sparingly.

Don Hogle’s love of poetry began as a child, acting out the witches’ scenes from Macbeth with monkey puppets. He was disciplined in kindergarten for kissing the girls. Some things have changed over the intervening six decades, others not so much.

Fresh from an extended European tour, Lauren Lee presents a program of new songs that reflect her global
influences and experiences as a stranger trying to communicate in a language that anyone can understand.
Constantly exploring the outer realms of what's possible with the human voice and ear, her compositions and
improvisations draw on feelings of apprehension and disappointment as well as elation and curiosity.

MATKOT is the sound of a female vocal quartet and a swinging jazz trio playing the unique arrangements
of
Israeli composer Rami Bar-David. Lush harmonies and Mediterranean flavor Bar-David's grooves hip
compositional style, which deconstructs jazz standards and popular classics and re-arranges them into a
distinctive new sound. Based in New York, MATKOT's music draws on both the jazz tradition and their Israeli
roots
to create a vibrant new repertoire.

This is a monthly opportunity for artists associated with the cafe--from every genre and every
generation,
past, present, and future--to gather informally, schmooze, re-invent the world, and hoist a
glass of quelque
chose (the only kind of chose to hoist). Our glorious curators are present, you can buttonhole
them to find
out what's cooking, you can introduce yourself to other toilers in the vineyard, invent projects
and discover
collaborators.

Hailed by the New York Times as a “conscientious” and “perceptive young trumpeter,” Holman has
distinguished himself as a a composer and soloist in many of the leading jazz ensembles of our time include
those led by Darcy James Argue, John Hollenbeck, and Fred Hersch. As a leader, Holman’s chamber jazz
recordings When Flooded (2013, Brooklyn Jazz Underground Records) and The Tenth Muse (2017, New Focus
Recordings) feature “richly orchestrated tapestries of sound and beautifully developed melodic ideas,” (Down
Beat) that draw “inspiration from a large gamut of musical sources that stretch far beyond jazz” (Hot House).

Holman’s new project OUTLANDS features original music inspired by his native state of Arizona.

"Nick Brust’s playing and writing is evidence that the future of the alto saxophone is in good hands. Rarely do
you find a young player who combines exquisite, head-spinningly dextrous playing with such thoughtful ideas
and compositions. Check him out!" -Will Vinson

Pacemaker” is an appropriate name for a band led by a drummer, the beating heart of the rhythm section. But
for drummer and bandleader Colin Stranahan, the name has a deeper, more mysterious meaning. Colin’s
grandfather Glen had a pacemaker, and the device seemed to posses special powers in the mind of young
Colin.

Playing wide-ranging sets of original compositions by Stranahan and his bandmates, as well as music by the
drummer Paul Motian.

The Greek-American Writers Association invites you to a dazzling evening of music, comedy, poetry and story.
Acclaimed jazz pianist Jill McManus and the great bassist Boots Maleson will perform.
Director/actor/author Stephan Morrow will premiere a new piece.

Cloning Americana explores the range of modern improvisational music in the context of the current political
and cultural landscape.
The group expresses their lament at how far we have moved away from the American values of respect,
compassion, and tolerance.

" With the tactful touch of classic jazz, these established musicians craft an album at once effortlessly
charming and heavy with nostalgia
for the America of decades past. "
" Such elegance and understatement maybe more revolutionary than wildly flaring saxophones and blaring
drum rhythms. " --Sharon Mizrahi,NYC Jazz Record

Four poets who have never shared a stage, and who each have recent celebrated publications, will offer cutting edge responses to the challenge facing every artist in America today --or present poems whose only purpose is to tease out an inner truth.

Israeli born vocalist, pianist, songwriter, improviser, painter of sounds. Recently regarded as “one of New
York’s more interesting and original artists” (New York Music Daily), she draws inspiration from different
musical worlds, integrating her background of classical and jazz piano, tabla studies, jazz singing and
rock/punk/ska keyboard playing into her original music.

Idan Morim, a young guitarist making a name for himself in the NYC Music scene over the last few years, will
be performing his original music along side a band of unique and powerful talents. Performing under his
projects name I.M Idans work is rooted in Jazz and improvised music while reaching into different music
spheres along the way.

It has been said that there are not different "types" or categories of music, only good music and bad music. How can we know the difference between good and bad music however? Well, on some accounts, there are indeed different types ('low' vs 'high' art), some of which are by definition bad, others good. Yet, on other accounts, music is music – there are no essential differences in kind, and it is simply each listener's favorable or unfavorable reaction to any given song or piece of music that decides its quality. In very broad strokes, these two contrasting orientations represent attitudes common in modernist and postmodernist theories, respectively. In the former, Western classical music was privileged (unjustly, in some respects) above all other kinds. However, the latter orientation, which is currently in fashion, seems to reduce all musical meaning and appraisal to little more than our own mental projections. In this presentation, a third, alternative way to identify musical "types" is proposed, one that seeks to illuminate meaningful musical distinctions in the natures and functions of three musical kinds (folk, mass, and art music), with some surprising results. A brief piano performance will precede the talk.

After graduating from the Thelonious Monk Institute in 2016 (where she studied under Wayne Shorter and
Herbie Hancock), pianist and composer Carmen Staaf has been increasingly busy as a side person, performing
with Dee Dee Bridgewater, Allison Miller's Boom Tic Boom, Darcy James Argue's Secret Society, Thana Alexa,
Allegra Levy, Joe Phillips and Numinous, and many others. She is also a uniquely personal composer and
arranger, drawing from the jazz tradition as well as her experience with klezmer, classical, Cuban and South
Indian genres.

For her new record "Day Dream", Staaf enlists a star-studded ensemble to interpret her extraordinary
arrangements of jazz classics and originals. Featuring vocals, horns, bass, drums, kora and percussion, this
diverse group explores familiar songs with creativity, grace and innovation.